VIDEO: Jennifer Lopez on Good Musicals, Bad Bunny, and the Oscar-Nominated Role She Regrets Turning Down

It’s Jennifer Lopez’s world and we’re all just trying to keep up.

As one of Hollywood’s most dynamic leading ladies, her films — which include everything from thrillers, animated comedies, and a handful of timeless rom-coms to her brand-new musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman” — have earned over $3 billion at the box office. As a singer and songwriter, she’s sold over 80 million records, dropped chart-toppers across three different decades, and dazzled over a hundred million viewers alongside Shakira and an up-and-coming Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show.

To call Lopez a superstar might be an understatement. She’s covered countless fashion magazines, has legions of loving fans across every demographic, and her own “cultural impact” page on Wikipedia. At the 2000 Grammys, she turned so many heads in a green Versace dress that Google was forced to invent an image search function. The “Ain’t It Funny” singer and “Hustlers” actress is, by any metric, one the most successful artists on the planet.

Growing up in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, however, she admits her life once had a very different trajectory.

“I was a tomboy. I was an athlete. I was the kid who was always at practice after school — doing track, playing tennis,” she told Howard on Wednesday morning during her eagerly anticipated Stern Show debut. “It’s funny because my [older] sister was the singer … and I was kind of the athlete, and [my younger sister] was the smart one.”

“We all had our labels, and so I stayed in my box for a little while,” Jennifer continued, explaining how everything changed after she started performing with her sister in high school musicals. “One of the teachers said, ‘I’m going to give you the big song,’” she recalled with a smile. “It was somebody saying, ‘You can do this.’”

In addition to receiving encouragement from her family and her teachers, Lopez recalled being inspired by multi-talented entertainers like Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, and Rita Moreno. “My mom showed me a lot of musicals … and I just fell in love with them,” she told Howard. “I saw ‘West Side Story’ and thought, ‘This is what I want to do with my life.’”

Considering the outsized role of musicals upon her career, it’s perhaps surprising Lopez waited until now to finally star in a Broadway adaptation.

“It’s not really your typical musical,” Jennifer said of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which was adapted from Chita Rivera’s Tony-winning 1993 musical. “I love it.”

“It’s stunning,” Howard agreed, adding that he also enjoyed her character Ingrid Luna’s platinum-blonde look.

“It was a whole transformation,” Lopez admitted. “I turned into a different person. My body moved differently — the colors that I wore — everything changed.”

On Bad Bunny Headlining Super Bowl LX Halftime Show

Jennifer is no stranger to performing in front of large audiences, but perhaps no stage was bigger than the Super Bowl halftime show she co-headlined with Shakira. Much has been made of the NFL asking the “Waiting for Tonight” singer to perform with Shakira (and also Gloria Estefan, who ultimately declined) instead of giving each superstar their own separate halftime show. At the time, Lopez told Howard, the situation left her with mixed feelings.

“It was always such a dream to do it, you know? Like my idols — like Madonna, like Diana Ross, like Prince — like all these people. And you wait for your turn. And then they say, ‘Oh, you’re gonna do it with Shakira and Gloria,’” Lopez recalled. “It was almost like you think that one Latin artist couldn’t do it by themselves. That was more the thing to me. Shakira deserved her own as well.”

Over time, however, her perspective has evolved. “I wanted my moment, my shot at that to do what I had always dreamed, but I have to say — in retrospect — it was perfect,” she told Howard. “I’m so proud of that Super Bowl, and I’m so proud to have shared that stage with Shakira because we did represent something in that moment that was important: two women who were moms who were Latin who stood for hard work and what was going on in the country at the time … There was a lot going on that we were able to kind of bring a beautiful light to in the way that we do what we do.”

The massively popular Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny will headline this year’s Super Bowl and Lopez, for her part, celebrated the decision. “I feel like as artists it’s about sharing different ideas, different cultures, all of the things — so I applaud the NFL for doing that, especially at this time,” she said, adding “because he’s probably the biggest fucking artist on the planet right now.”

“That to me is a triumph for all of us,” she added.

Finding Love

The conversation eventually turned to Jennifer’s love life, which has long been tabloid fodder thanks in part to some high-profile relationships with celebrities like Alex Rodriguez, Marc Anthony, and Ben Affleck. The “If You Had My Love” singer didn’t have a bad word to say about any of her exes, but she did share some general wisdom she gleaned over the years.

“It’s difficult to live under that microscope,” she told Howard. “The truth is when you’re in this type of career and you have the level of fame we’re talking about there is a compromise [and] there are adjustments that you do need to make because it is a very blessed life.” “What I learned [is] it’s not that I’m not lovable, it’s that they’re not capable,” she continued. “They don’t have it in them. They need to appreciate the little person inside of them.”

Lopez was clear it wasn’t for a lack of trying. “They gave me what they had — they gave me all of it every time,” she said. “All the rings, all the things I could ever want.”

And still, as demonstrated by her songs, the star remains a believer. “They’re all about love,” she told Howard.

Howard and Jennifer’s open and frequently intimate conversation covered a variety of subjects, including which Cillian Murphy TV show she’s currently binging, why she left a law office job to pursue her dreams (“it just calls you”), and how grateful she was to land a job as a Fly Girl dancer on the “groundbreaking” sketch-comedy show “In Living Color,” which also featured emerging stars like Jamie Foxx and Jim Carrey.

“It was huge. Honestly, I thought I’d made it right there. I was done,” Lopez said with a laugh. “That was like hitting the jackpot as a dancer.”

Check out more clips from Jennifer Lopez’s Stern Show debut (below).